Higher Metro a.m. fares start Monday

By
Washington Post Editors

Metro will begin charging a 20-cent "peak-of-the-peak" fee for rail trips taken between 7:30 and 9 a.m. weekdays, starting Monday.

The morning rush-hour surcharge follows a 20-cent charge imposed Aug. 3 for trips between 4:30 and 6 p.m. weekdays. Metro delayed the morning increase after implementing the fare changes proved to be more complex than anticipated.

The fee is based on when a customer enters the fare gate at a Metrorail station and is part of a wide range of fare increases expected to generate nearly $109 million to help close a $189 million shortfall in Metro's operating budget for this fiscal year.

These overpaid, undereducated, semiconscious metro employees are once again fleecing all of us, even though the metro's escalators are chronically broken, the service is undependable, and the trains are crawling with welfare leeches who've never worked a day in their lives.

To mark the beginning of higher fares, metro seems to have switched off the AC in many trains this morning so that commuters could arrive at work good and sweaty. It's good to know that our money is being well spent so far.

This city is doing everything it possibly can to shrink its population. I don't understand how the escalator mechanics remain employed; it is clear they do not know the first thing about how escalators operate.

I don't care about the escalators... most people could use the exercise. What is ridiculous is that people are going to be priced out of the public transportation they need to get to work to earn an honest living or to get to school to get an education. $.20 extra may not seem like much, unless you are scraping by. And even if you are doing OK, this is a fleece when you consider the value you are getting: no A/C in trains, poor ventilation in stations (brake fumes, healthy? Not.), delays, outages, trains that run every 20-30min on the weekends. I say again, if NYC can figure it out, why can't DC?